FiftyTwoWords Returns this December with Struggle

FiftyTwoWords hosts its second event, ‘Struggle’, at the dlr Mill Theatre in Dundrum Town Centre this December.

FiftyTwoWords provides a platform for people to share their personal experiences, tell their stories and define words through their experiences. Each event is based around a word or a theme through which three or four speakers explore and share their diverse and personal perspectives of that theme.

Speaking about the motivation behind setting up FiftyTwoWords, Co-Founder Diarmuid O’Flynn says “We want to create an environment where people can share ideas and experiences in order to promote discussion and even challenge people’s perceptions and ideals. Through these events we hope to ignite people’s passions and potentially raise interest in worthwhile endeavours and causes.”

At their debut event, four selected speakers (pictured below) shared their experiences and stories revolving around the word ‘Risk’. The event proved to be a real success with audience members commending, and connecting to, the diversity of speakers on the night. The audience were offered the opportunity to question the speakers live through social media, as well as putting their opinions on paper after the event and being given the opportunity to discuss themes further with speakers after the event in a relaxed social setting.

Dr. Shane Hegarty (Neuro-Scientist and Researcher)

UCC Neuroscientist and researcher Dr. Shane Hegarty portrays an academic approach to the concept of ‘Struggle’. As a Neuroscientist, he explores the very basis of people to try to define and explain how we experience, create and manage our struggles. Dr. Hegarty explores the impact of struggle on our lives from a biological, psychological and neuro-scientific view-point. He uses the case study of his own life experiences as a Parkinson’s researcher to discuss his hypotheses on struggle and what this means to each of us.

Dr. Hegarty will be followed by Richard Barrett, the Co- founder of both Pundit Arena and the recently held One-Zero Sport Tech Conference. He will present his experiences of the entrepreneurial struggle in starting out and growing a business. He will shed some light on the high and lows that come with building a business from nothing but an idea. Most have recently heard of his work through the highly publicised withdrawal of would-be primary speaker Lance Armstrong less than twenty-four hours from the recently held One-Zero Sport Tech Conference held in the RDS in October 2016.

Phil Quinlan served as an Infantry Captain with the Irish Army and now works as a management consultant with KPMG. Phil will present how our individual struggles are formative in our personal and cultural development. He will discuss how struggle can remain personal, even in the midst of wider conflict, citing his overseas experiences in the war torn regions of Kosovo, Uganda and Western Sahara. These personal experiences coupled with his extensive studies in political science and conflict resolution will certainly make for a dynamic presentation.

The final speaker, Sandra Irwin Gowran, works as the Education & Support Programme Manager at Educate Together. Speaking about her previous role as the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network’s former director and Civil Marriage Equality campaigner she will provide the audience with an insight into the struggles that she and the civil marriage equality campaign faced on route to convincing the Irish people to vote for civil marriage for same sex couples. This will be an extremely insightful and honest talk around the subject of homosexuality and the struggle for LGBT rights in Ireland.

Diarmuid O’Flynn of FiftyTwoWords, says, “We are really excited about our line up and feel we have an amazingly, interesting and dynamic show, that everyone can learn and take something away with them.”

Patrons of this FiftyTwoWords event will also have the opportunity to share their own ‘Struggle’ stories during the mid-way break. No matter how large or how small the struggle, guests are invited and encouraged to define their own words and the meaning of struggle in their own life in a short impromptu presentation during the interlude.